{"id":425,"date":"2017-03-31T09:57:20","date_gmt":"2017-03-31T00:57:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/nicolewillson.com\/blog\/?p=425"},"modified":"2017-04-01T01:25:14","modified_gmt":"2017-03-31T16:25:14","slug":"how-to-get-me-to-read-your-novel","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/nicolewillson.com\/blog\/how-to-get-me-to-read-your-novel\/","title":{"rendered":"How to Get Me to Read Your Novel"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Image<\/a>
Please don’t do the stuff below. It’s really annoying.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

 <\/p>\n

There are plenty of ways to get me to read your book. I’m a big reader. I love books!<\/p>\n

But I\u2019m going to start off by ranting about how NOT to do it.<\/p>\n

Don\u2019t follow me on Twitter and then, the second I follow you back, hit me with a direct message: \u201cHEY PERSON I DON\u2019T KNOW, I AM SO GENEROUSLY GIVING MY FREE BOOK TO YOU EVEN THOUGH I DON\u2019T KNOW ANYTHING ABOUT YOU OR WHAT YOU ACTUALLY LIKE.\u201d You guys don\u2019t even bother telling me what the book\u2019s about<\/i>, for frack\u2019s sake.<\/p>\n

This approach has all the charm of the person soaked in cheap body spray and desperation who puts the moves on every customer\u00a0at the bar in the hopes that someone, anyone<\/em> might go to bed with them. Or the person who bangs on your door on Saturday morning when you\u2019re barely awake, wanting you to buy overpriced wrapping paper for their kid\u2019s school.<\/p>\n

I haven\u2019t been engaging with the writing community on Twitter all that long, and this has already happened enough that I\u2019m getting wary of following people back. Stop invading my online space with this stuff when I\u2019m a stranger. It\u2019s annoying. I know it\u2019s a tough field\u00a0out there for self-published authors and you really need to grab any possible opportunity. I don\u2019t want to have to do that.\u00a0That’s\u00a0why I\u2019m in the process of querying agents. (Yes, I know I will have to market myself even if I’m traditionally published. But I like to think I won’t abuse Twitter to do it.)<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s a good way to get me to read your novel: Be witty\u00a0and smart and insightful\u00a0on Twitter (and elsewhere), and interact frequently with other people. And by \u201cinteract\u201d I mean \u201chave actual conversations,\u201d not \u201cI like cats too and also I WROTE A BOOK THAT HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH WHAT WE\u2019RE TALKING ABOUT AND I DON\u2019T KNOW YOU OR WHAT YOU LIKE TO READ BUT I\u2019M SURE YOU WILL LOVE IT.\u201d Be a real person, not a salesbot.<\/p>\n

If I get to know you on social media and decide I like you and enjoy what you contribute to a given online space, then I will almost certainly go check out your writing. Yes, even if it\u2019s not in one of my favorite genres. Even though I\u2019m not a big sci-fi fan, I bought John Scalzi\u2019s first novel the minute it came out. Why? Because after years of reading his blog and getting to \u201cknow\u201d him as a person, I wanted to support his work. And hey\u2014look at him now. Writing a funny, smart, personable blog might not have helped him get all the sales that led to that killer book deal, but I bet it didn\u2019t hurt<\/i>.<\/p>\n

I want to support people I like.<\/p>\n

But that involves getting to know you first.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

  There are plenty of ways to get me to read your book. I’m a big reader. I love books!…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[10,11,5],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/nicolewillson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/425"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/nicolewillson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/nicolewillson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nicolewillson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nicolewillson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=425"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/nicolewillson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/425\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":433,"href":"http:\/\/nicolewillson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/425\/revisions\/433"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/nicolewillson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=425"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nicolewillson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=425"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nicolewillson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=425"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}